


Fidget

by Left_Handed_Darkness



Category: StarCraft
Genre: Ficlet, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Rule of Cool, Self-indulgent fluff for it's own sake, Well - Freeform, a cute bloopy friend with a mining laser, what happens when a rogue spectre makes a friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 16:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13861146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Left_Handed_Darkness/pseuds/Left_Handed_Darkness
Summary: A rogue spectre finds himself not quite as alone as he first thought.





	Fidget

**Author's Note:**

> A little something I did after accidentally falling in love with the setting for StarCraft. I don't claim to be an expert on the series, however after playing with the idea of a SC verse for an existing character of mine (Khairan is originally my WoW main - a Sin'dorei Blood Mage) the idea of exploring the setting from a more wayfaring viewpoint came to mind.
> 
> I don't think that I'm going to make a linear work out of this, though it's tempting to do a series of shorts about these two. I'm definitely open to suggestions.
> 
> One final note, if anyone finds any weird wordings or typos, please tell me; the majority of this fic was done on my phone, and chances are there are more than a few strange autocorrect issues that I might not have noticed.

Khairan's ears pricked up at the noise. At first he'd thought that it might have been the song of a particularly ugly bird, but the more he focused on it, he came to recognise it as something purely artificial. A strange notion, given that the only man-made materials on this desolate savannah were either what he carried with him, the burnt out ruins to the south, and that vulture hoverbike he'd stolen from a Dominion base back west.

He glanced around the area with terrazine-tainted eyes, reaching out with his mind - trying to find any trace of where the sound came from.

A  _ presence  _ stood out nearby, lying between scorched rock and ashen ground; a presence that resonated strangely in the Spectre’s mind. It didn't feel hostile, simply  _ alien _ .

He headed in its direction, light-footed and cautious. The zerg had infested this planet once before, and even though the planet had been  _ purified _ , there was no telling as to whether they had truly been destroyed. Yet what he found was no zerg.

It lay between a pile of rocks and the coarse grass, it's reflective casing left dented and dusty. Several of the protective flanges had been knocked off its left side, and it was bleeping what could only be damage reports.

It was a probe. A protoss probe - one that had been there for a while, given the grime that had accrued over time. There were dents and bitemarks over its casing, and Khairan couldn't help but feel a little but sorry for it.

"Hello there,” he muttered, kneeling down to brush some of the dirt from its casing, eyes glowing with curiosity and terrazine residue. “You look like you need a hand.”

A shutter slowly opened and closed over the probe’s single large “eye”, and it let out a string of soft bloops - eliciting a smile from its new acquaintance.

Khairan peered at it for a moment, feeling the machine’s intelligence hovering at the edge of his mind. A brief inspection revealed not only cracks in its plating, but a damaged mechanism underneath.

None of it looked familiar - hell, he didn't even recognise the material it had been constructed from - but the majority of it looked fairly intuitive. All clean breaks and unseated connectors. Superficially at least, the damage didn't look  _ too _ severe.

“Wait - I won't be a moment.” Khairan said, climbing back to his feet. He strode back to the vulture, retrieving the toolkit from its luggage compartment. He was acting out of sheer curiosity now; of course the probe’s presence indicated that the protoss had an interest in the planet at some point, but he was also intrigued as to whether he might get the little thing to fly again.

And part of it, he admitted to himself, was that he was lonely.

Despite the absurdity of it all, he found himself using a fine pair of manipulators to repair connections, mending breakages with small bits of electrical tape and deft fingers. Time melted away as he worked, and for once he felt a certain stillness and calm that he hadn't in a long while.

Energy hummed through the damaged probe, and the cracked capacitor on its side began charging once again. The probe rose from the ground, slowly turning to face Khai.

It blinked again, then projected a shower of light over its new discovery, beeping happily. A scan - a scan of its new friend.

Khairan smiled. He has no idea of what to expect - and wasn’t even sure of what would happen - but the probe’s curiosity seemed to mirror his own. He reached out, placing a hand on the probe’s casing as if to say hello.

It needed a name.

He looked at it, watching how it gently bobbed up and down on invisible currents of power, the capacitor vanes twitching with… something. He wasn't sure what. Perhaps the missing ones on the left side were at fault, and the other side was adjusting to compensate; or perhaps it was a simple function of the mechanism to begin with. He didn't know, but he cared regardless as he watched the little construct fidget in the air.

Fidget.

Its name was Fidget.


End file.
